DOVER, Del. -- The Sprint Cup Series is about to find out how much Kyle Busch has matured in two years.

Because for the second time in three editions of the Chase for the Sprint Cup, after two of 10 races, Busch finds himself in last position; and the sight is brutal.

"At this point, it doesn't matter [if I think I have a chance to win the championship]," Busch said midway through the Camping World RV 400 after changing clothes in his hauler and coming out to meet the press. "Same thing happened two years ago -- exact same thing: Wrecked at Loudon, blew up here. So where did we end up [in 2006] -- dead last."

An engine failure that took 30-something laps to become terminal put Busch's No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota on the trailer after only 172 of 400 laps (watch video). It was only his second DNF of the year and came one day after he won his record-extending 19th race of the season in NASCAR's three national tours, Saturday's Nationwide Series 200-lapper.

The vital signs between the two years, two races into the Chase are similar. In 2006 Busch's No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was 224 points out of first after finishing 38th and 40th in the first two events.

Last week at New Hampshire a broken Heim joint, followed by a crash as he scrambled to make up time, put Busch 34th at the finish, and eighth in the Chase. As Sunday unfolded at Dover International Speedway, Busch had hope as, after 140 laps he'd picked up three spots in the standings while running ninth in the race.

But by mid-afternoon, the only thing that differentiated Busch's garage stall from a hospital emergency room after a failed resuscitation was that there was no blood on the slew of rags strewn about Busch's Toyota's engine bay.

And while the patient at the moment was just as inextricably dead -- and in Busch's case last in both the Camping World RV 400 and the Chase, 210 points behind leader Carl Edwards -- the striking difference between a grieving family and Busch's JGR Toyota crew is the latter still has hope, even if Busch couldn't bring himself to say it.

"They've got a lot to prove, that this year wasn't a fluke," crew chief Steve Addington said of his team. "We're going to go out and try to win races. We can take some chances, do some different things now and have some fun and finish this year up.

"If we go out and win races and guys start having bad luck we can be right back in this thing. We're not out of it. We're not saying we're dead. We're going to keep on kicking."

This week, Addington may do some kicking around his driver's backside -- affectionately, of course. To his credit, Busch spent more than 15 minutes inside his trailer before he came out and satisfied every media outlet that needed him.

But his expression and his words plainly said he was far from satisfied himself.

"We're out of the title hunt," Busch said. "That's for sure. So we'll just manage what we can."

“

It's hard to tell [Busch] to keep his head up -- I mean, there's nobody who's going to make him feel better right now, and rightfully so. You feel for those guys.

”

-- TONY STEWART

A couple hours later JGR president J.D. Gibbs -- who'd spent the better part of a half hour around his team as they worked on their crippled car and in the hauler with Busch -- wore an expression similar to Busch's as he left the garage following the race.

In concert with Busch's engine failure, teammate Denny Hamlin, who came to Dover sixth in the Chase, plummeted to 11th after experiencing mechanical trouble and finishing 38th. Hamlin is 193 points behind Edwards.

But Gibbs, siphoning a lot of hope off Busch's regular season performance of eight victories and an 80-point lead in the championship when the Chase began, was nowhere near to pulling the plug.

"I almost don't know what to say," Gibbs said of a day in which his group's best finish was 11th, by Tony Stewart, who remained seventh in the Chase. "Our group's not going to quit -- but whether or not that gets you back up in the Chase, who knows? We've kind of got to wait and see on that.

"But it's just painful. You work this hard and this long -- and we had two things, with Denny having that other issue. So it's frustrating. But I kind of look at this Chase as, you won't know [what's going to happen] until you're four or five or six races into it and then you'll get a better feel.

"We might knock off some great runs and have a shot, but right now it's frustrating."

If Busch's team felt that way, it didn't show. After he backed his car into the stall opposite his transporter, about a dozen JGR employees, wearing a variety of uniforms, swarmed around it, completing the ER theme.

They poked and probed and sprayed and swabbed for more than 20 minutes before finally attempting to fire the engine. It turned over, but was immediately switched off, punctuated by a final puff of white smoke.

"We thought, with all the oil that had blown out under the hood that we were probably done," Addington said. "But we wanted to work and make sure, to just confirm it -- and it had busted a seal on the front end [of the engine].

"We just wanted to make sure we couldn't go out and run some laps and gain whatever's out there."

Addington said he understood Busch's dismay, saying "he's frustrated right now -- everybody is a little bit frustrated." But he challenged anyone to point fingers after two bewildering events.

"It was human error on the first one, at Loudon," Addington said. "This right here, Mark Cronquist [JGR head engine builder] and his guys have been bulletproof all year long. If anybody says anything about our engine department tell them to come and see me."

If it's any consolation to Busch and his team, neither his teammates nor the competition has written him off. And in the case of two-time champion and 2005 Chase victor Stewart, he feels Busch's pain.

"If I were [Busch's] team, I'd go out there and just worry about winning races again," Stewart said. "It's been a remarkable, record-setting year for that kid, and the best way to finish it off now is to go out there and win three or four races during the Chase.

"It's hard to tell him to keep his head up -- I mean, there's nobody who's going to make him feel better right now, and rightfully so. The kid has worked hard all year. The team has worked hard all year. They've just had two bad races in a row, and that's what you hope doesn't happen, obviously. You feel for those guys."

Both Edwards, who expanded his Chase lead on two-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson to 10 points; and four-time champion Jeff Gordon saw Busch's situation as less than terminal.

"When things don't go your way, you can't second-guess yourself and everything you're doing," Gordon said from eighth in the Chase, 118 points behind. "You've just got to regroup and get back together and not let it get you down."

"I think that this thing could be so different in a month from now," Edwards said. "Kyle could be leading the points a month from now -- he could win all the races, and a few guys could have some bad luck. I still think it's too early to speculate. It just doesn't matter right now."

Matt Kenseth, who came into Dover last in the Chase and 177 points out had a great day, led the most laps and finished second to his Roush Fenway Racing teammate Greg Biffle -- who won his second consecutive Chase event. But Kenseth made up just 10 points on Edwards while moving up to 10th.

Even with that, Kenseth had a simple answer when asked if Busch's title hopes were dead and buried, as Busch had professed.

"No," Kenseth said.